BADOLBILZ

To me losing the $3.6M is a big dead cap hit when you have no alternatives inside. You gotta' write Ford and Boettger off at this point. Not out of the realm of possibility that they cut Williams but with top end guards falling in the $15M-$19M aav.........and Nelson likely to re-set the market entirely..........if Williams has a chance at a bounce back I think they might be inclined to keep him. He's a mercurial player. Guy was an All Pro once.......could barely get work in the 2020 offseason........then plays at a Pro Bowl level in 2020. Now this year he's been a middling guard. LG is the most glaring issue. Boettger is impossibly bad in the run game and mediocre in pass pro. Feliciano is marginally better. Don't know if Doyle has any future at all.

I might be projecting the Roman experience too much..........but as I've said, that Wood/Glenn lead OL was seen as a disaster under Marrone..........this board was pretty distraught about the situation...........the only real talent upgrade they made was adding Incognito and upgrading the coaching. John Miller was not talented.........the Bills reached for him and the scheme made him look serviceable. And Jordan Mills was hated in Chicago........just considered a lousy player they had to start and despite all of the chances he got to wear on DE's he was never anything better than horrible in pass pro. And that offense dominated the run game and the Bills averaged over 6 plays of 20 yards or more per game in those 2 years. So IMO, getting one stud OG might make a world of difference. Daryl Williams will likely be back at the other guard..........they are in a bad dead money spot if they cut him. I can't see a complete switch out and it's probably not needed. But Mitch Morse needs a body guard inside.

Much rather pay the going rate for a guy like Norwell, Tomlinson or Scherff in FA than use a high pick on one. People will say they don't have a lot of cap space..........but they are going to clear out some bodies that will make some and if they sign a quality OG they can backload the deal. Can't afford to come into next season without a difference maker inside and they really need to be replenishing the key, HUGE money positions with those high picks.

My bad, it appears they played 43% nickel..........in a game where the offense threw the ball only 7% of the time......and barely beyond the LOS when they did. That kind of respect for the impact of the passing game would have been shocking not that long ago. Now, it's almost expected. But the gains in the run game still affect the psyche of many fans the way it would have 20 years ago.

Trouble in Jax just makes me wonder how this could help the Bills. Per NFL next gen stats Jags Andrew Norwell.......a pending UFA......... has the highest run block win rate of any left guard in the NFL this season.........and a good pass block win rate. The Jags have a ton of cap room but maybe the former Carolina Panther decides it's time to get out of Jax. If they could add one player in UFA this offseason, let it be a quality interior OL.

Tough re-match in the Grey Cup for Hamilton. This time around the Blue Bombers have the best O-fence and D-fence in the CFL. But by good fortune it's a home game and the TiCats really looked great in second half in stomping the Argos out in the East Final last week. QB Dane Evans was on fire. The talent isn't comparable of course but this is sorta' reminiscent of the second SB matchup between the Bills and Cowboys. First matchup, lotta' people thought the Bills could win and they played terribly and lost............second time, they were a big underdog but actually had a great game plan and held the lead at the half and could have won that game. Had it been a home game for the Bills though........ Would be TiCats first Grey Cup title since 1999.

Correct. I didn't watch the end, just saw the highlights of second half. Thought they were down by 6. But the fact is that dominating a team on the ground isn't a death blow to that team in the modern NFL. It's not a mistake or even a glaring sign of weakness that teams are allowing so many rushing yards. It's primarily because they don't want to get beaten by big plays in the passing game. That's been the theme of the entire NFL season. If Buffalo was terrified of the scoring impact of NE running at them all night.........they wouldn't have played 5 DB's most of the game.

Running the ball creates space in your passing game. It slows the pass rush for the QB and then the back 7 also has to respect their run responsibilities. I'm not a fan at all of spread offense football. But I am also not one who thinks you need a top 5 running game either. It's about scoring. The old Ron Jaworski saying still works "you score points in the passing game".

One of the things we are seeing though is that there are teams running for 200+ yards every week now and those teams aren't dominating the actual games. TN ran for 270 and LOST to NE. Minnesota ran for 242 and SHOULD have lost if Freiermuth can hold on to the very well thrown pass in the end zone last night. NE ran for a bunch versus Buffalo but should have lost that game but for far too many unforced errors by Buffalo as well. The reality is..........ground and pound isn't domination anymore. Rushing yards used to have a greater impact back in the day when it was harder for teams to score fast or come back from larger deficits. That's not the case now.

To clarify........you said he is GREAT when he is on the field. I never said anything about the Bills defensive ranking and the fact that they have played well despite his frequent absences is not the best proof of his greatness. You're off on a tangent here. Besides........having a #1 defense is about yardage allowed. So the key is to be a good pass defense because it's about twice as hard to gain yardage on the ground in the NFL as it is in the air. Take the "L".........calling him great wasn't an accurate statement by any means.

Fina pointed out some mistakes by the RB's in that game...........but EVERY position group makes SOME mistakes. Fina could have pointed out the same types of occasional mistakes in the secondary or the WR corps or the DL.......units that generally get good grades. The issue is that the OL CONSISTENTLY fails to execute their assignments properly. It all starts with them..........if they do their job consistently.....then the RB's can trust their blocking and it makes it easier to anticipate where the hole will be. What we too often are seeing are RB's being tentative because they ASSUME that the OL will blow their assignments. For good reason. Go back and watch the Breida fumble..........that's a mistake on him........but as he is being handed the ball two defenders are coming unblocked leaving Breida trying to figure out how to avoid a loss before he even gets the ball. Your running game can't function at a high level like that.

Breida has proven he can do it in SF. Singletary's numbers aren't bad. I believe Moss ran it a lot in college and at times looked more comfortable at it than Singletary last year. It's not just a speed and quickness thing. Most of the yardage is still inside. It's vision and instinct for the cutback. Shady McCoy was good at inside zone but bad at outside zone. Back in the Shanahan days in Denver they had a run where they had one late round pick or UDFA with poor speed and quickness numbers after another excel in the their outside zone style. But they had undersized but very athletic OL's.........like the 80's and 90's 49ers did. They were good at getting to DL knees and creating big cutback lanes.

False. He was out there Monday night. Was that great? He was out there against Tennessee. Great? Nope.

The Bills have been trying to run outside zone......like the 49ers run now.........but their guards aren't really good enough to make it work, IMO. I can see them tryna' swipe Laken Tomlinson from SF in free agency.

How was retirement?

MORE train horn. Every defensive down. The crowd needs all the prodding that they can get. I sit near the top of the lower bowl and even though everyone stands, most of them make zero noise. The place is at about 25% noise capacity this season.

I think Daboll wanted to be more of a man blocking run offense initially. But they decided mid-season last year that their passing offense was more streamlined using outside zone, which involves less complicated line calls. So they've changed plans since he got here. Problem is........that challenges Beane and the personnel department to have the right kinds of players in place. Still.......the problems have been greatly magnified by the entire OL..........SAVE for Morse.........playing worse than expected for various reasons (poor preparation, injury, covid ignorance etc..). Getting the OL prepared falls on Bobby Johnson so I'd be surprised if this season ends short of a SB and he isn't fired. If the offensive lineman aren't preparing well.......at the facility or in the offseason.........that still falls on the guy who is in charge of monitoring them year round. I've never understood what compelled McDermott to even take the chance of switching the Bills rush offense from the inside zone approach they used to great success in the Roman/Lynn seasons. Said it then.......that was a very dumb decision.......and it is costing them even now. They had an identity in that aspect of the game and they had players who could execute that style at a high level. Just a matter of keeping the cupboard stocked when you have a system that works.

Morse is very similar in style to Eric Wood. Wood was terrible in the power run game under Marrone. Might as well have been wearing skates on the field on run downs. The switch to the inside zone attack under Greg Roman resuscitated his career. With less physical, athletic lineman you want them to be blocking the edges of defenders instead of trying to push their whole body weight off the LOS.

He's been bad this season, but in fairness this OL allows free rushers at an alarming rate. And elusiveness is not his game. At all. He's a power runner who is good at blitz pickup and not bad in the passing game. That is why he keeps getting snaps. My issue with him is the same as last year. As the season went on he started to anticipate penetrating defenders and got tentative to the holes and left yardage on the field. While it's hard to blame a player for that considering how bad the OL has been.........that's a sign of an ordinary RB. But put him on TN and he would be their #1 RB right now.

The OL is the majority of the problem. Put these backs behind the OL in NE or TN and they would produce fine. Najee Harris is a talented RB. Pittsburgh expended a $30M-per-year-position-type draft pick on him. He's rushing for a ghastly 3.7 ypc this season. Because his OL isn't good. By contrast......Devin Singletary is getting nearly a full yard per carry more than him and is basically a career 4.7 ypc RB on over 400 career carries. Not sure how one can watch the Bills OL allow defenders to slash cleanly into the backfield play after play and somehow think that it's not an offensive line issue.

For the most part they are built right. The OL has just had a very, very poor year.........including some guys who were excellent last year.........and subsequently the offense has struggled. The defense is built to play with leads so they are a little lighter than ideal to play opposite a too often low scoring offense(but still very effective). And the coaching on offense this season has left a lot to be desired. But no, it's not like they have holes all over the lineup and no depth or a ton of players who don't fit.

After tonight.........Cam Heyward can never say that he never quit on the football field. That first half was very enjoyable bad football by a tired Steelers team and a Vikings team that lost to the Lions 4 days ago.

I'm not one for the false bravado like the OP has produced here. But the reality is that McDermott's consistently said that his primary message is that it's the teams that stick together thru the long season that play well at the end. Additionally..........they are pretty healthy and lower mileage as a team for being 12 games in. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they play much better down the stretch and in the playoffs.

The first step is understanding that this is not going to be the case. Can a different RB help a little? Sure. We've seen instances where the Bills RB's have made bad decisions and mistakes with their assignments. But it's not anything close to 50/50. Nobody is running for 270 yards with a bunch of OL they just picked up off the street..............TN just did it a week ago against the Patriots with 2 veteran street free agent RB's. It's at least 90% about the blocking. The Bills best hope is that they get back to full health at OL and they make adjustments. Like, as Eric Wood has suggested, going to more inside zone. But giving Williams some more snaps at the expense of Moss? Why not. Moss has been lousy.

1. If you are comfortable drafting an interior OL in round 1 you are either an idiot GM with brassy balls or you better be damn good at stealing players at key positions in the draft. 2. The Colts have won no playoff games since drafting Nelson (1 pick before Josh Allen, might add). They also can look forward to setting the market(by A LOT) for Quenton Nelson at around $25M per year this offseason or letting their team leader go into his walk year. And also not having a second round pick for the right to pay Carson Wentz $28M next season. Oh, and their former #1 overall draft pick LT is also a FA they might want to get done so that Wentz doesn't get snapped in half next season. Having the highest draft pedigree OL in football is one way to do it........but don't see it as a great strategy, IMO.